Loretta Roberson1, David Bailey2, Clifford A. Goudey3, Gretchen Grebe1, Hauke Kite-Powell2, Scott Lindell2, Domenic Manganelli4, Michael Marty-Rivera5, and Charles Yarish5
1Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA, USA, 2Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA, 3C.A. Goudey & Associates, Newburyport, MA, USA, 4TendOcean LLC, Newburyport, MA, USA, 5Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Stamford, CT, USA
The Caribbean’s small countries and island nations are experiencing a loss of resources due to climate change, nutrient pollution, ocean acidification, seagrass bed habitat loss, fishing pressure, and lost tourism revenues due to COVID-19. We believe that well-managed development and growth of tropical seaweed aquaculture, using applications of precision phyconomy in the region, may help to assuage these issues whilst also providing a new source of seaweed biomass for the existing carrageenan, new food and textile, and possibly future biofuel markets. We are exploring the opportunities for expanded seaweed aquaculture in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico in collaboration with partners across 15 institutions and research sites in Puerto Rico, Florida, and Belize. Together we are prototyping advanced, extensive cultivation systems and engineering that will allow future farms to be deployed in offshore areas. This also involves the important steps of creating tools to mechanize seeding and harvesting processes, as well as optimizing nursery conditions for seedstock, assessing the environmental footprint of these farm systems, characterizing the growth and composition of tropical algae in near and offshore environments, and conducting economic and life cycle analyses of these advanced phyconomic practices in this region. Findings from these efforts will be tailored to the conditions in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico but can be adapted for other locations with similar environmental conditions or needs for alternative marine livelihoods.